The Fix Picks the NFL Divisional Playoffs

ByDavid Roth

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Fortunately for the Texans, no one at the Houston Chronicle said enough to infuriate Patriots running back Stevan Ridley.

It’s easy enough to see why fans get so excited about the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. From the all-killer-no-filler slate of games to the two-day sprawl of it to the happy fact that the Raiders are no longer hanging around bumming everyone out—it’s all right there. Whether it will deliver, as advertised, the best football weekend of the season remains to be seen. And it depends to an uncomfortable degree upon Joe Flacco and Matt Schaub—the quarterbacks on this week’s two biggest anti-favorites—playing better than they have in weeks.

But even with that complicating factor, these are all intriguing games between well-matched—and, more to the point, universally good—football teams. That two of them feature two-score spreads surely says something—in short, it says that oddsmakers are not sold on the Ravens and that they remember what New England did to Houston at Foxboro earlier this season. But if Green Bay and San Francisco is pretty clearly the most intriguing match-up of the weekend, every game offers at least some reason to watch. In terms of what this weekend holds, besides the four top teams in each conference playing football, well, you’ve seen our predictive records on the season, and so know better than to take any of our prognostications without a few grains or fistfuls of salt. But it seems safe enough to predict that this weekend will offer some football worth watching. That and no Raiders. So, yeah: Enjoy responsibly.

Among the pair of two-score spreads on the divisional round slate, most contrarian takes have focused on the weekend-capping match-up between the Patriots and Texans. But while a case can be made—and is being made, reasonably and not necessarily with the sort of yeah-I-said-it smirkiness that usually defines this sort of case—that both that game and this one will be closer than oddsmakers think, no one seems terribly interested in making it in this case. It can be done, and not even with a great deal of effort. The Broncos ended the season with a fantastic winning streak compiled against teams ranging from the meh to the Chiefs (twice!). The Ravens have recently played more like the solid team they were for the season’s first two-thirds than the limping, lame-ish outfit that finished the season (and was blown out at home by the Broncos in Week 15). It’s going to be freezing in Denver on Saturday, and Peyton Manning is 0-3 in cold weather postseason games. There, that’s the case for a game decided by fewer than 10 points. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good case—Denver might have fattened up on the AFC West, but that is, after all, their division, and the Broncos have looked awfully good over the last few months. It’s easy enough to imagine Denver winning comfortably. It just seems polite to give the Ravens their due. This is the divisional round, after all. – DR

If it seems like a long time ago that these teams met, it’s because it was—San Francisco’s Week 1 victory over the Packers featured teams that were, uniforms and personnel notwithstanding, very different. While the game was heralded as a potential postseason preview even during those warmer, longer days, that prophecy barely seems to apply, here. Green Bay overcame a rocky start en route to this match-up, and San Francisco has changed both its quarterback and its offensive approach, for starters. Indeed, the 49ers aren’t necessarily the same team they were even a month ago. The Niners looked shaky after losing linchpin lineman Justin Smith—the less-heralded of the team’s pass-rushing Smiths, with Aldon Smith being the one with more sacks and publicity—to a torn triceps in the second half of the team’s wild win against New England. San Francisco will have him back this weekend, although at what level of effectiveness no one quite knows. The Packers are still built around the revenge-powered brilliance of Aaron Rodgers, but seem at long last to have figured out their running game. Both teams, in short, started out good and have continued to get better since they started their season against each other. Which team will finish the other’s season in this one is tough to call. How and why this match-up defines what people love about the divisional round, though, is easy enough to understand. – DR

Seattle at Atlanta (-2.5)DR: Seattle; JG: Atlanta; KtTL: Atlanta

Matt Ryan is never going to be given the benefit of the doubt until he wins his first playoff game, because sports are often reduced to the most easily consumed narrative. Ryan isn’t a winner, you see, and he doesn’t have what it takes–until, of course, he does. As such, this line feels a little small for the Falcons, who took the NFC’s top seed behind an accelerated passing game. They didn’t blow out many teams, but they also never got blown out. Narratives persist, though, and it’s immeasurably enticing to roll with the Seahawks, who’ve vacillated between “very good” and “utterly terrifying” over the last month. They should’ve beaten the Redskins by a lot more last week, were it not for some untimely turnovers. But the damning tidbit may be the season-ending ACL injury to defensive end Chris Clemons, who would’ve been Seattle’s attack dog in pressuring Ryan, as well as a nagging foot injury to the all-world Marshawn Lynch, whose almost indignant tackle-breaking was a big part of why the Seahawks got through Washington. Atlanta is carrying its injuries, too, but it seems like the Seahawks would be more hobbled without their best player on both ends of the field. Plus, Ryan has got to get over his aversion to winning in the playoffs at some point. Why not now? – JG

Houston at New England (-9.5)DR: New England; JG: New England; KtTL: New England

Everyone has ways of motivating themselves. Maybe you hang an inspirational cat poster on your wall, or purchase donuts with the intention of eating them once you’ve finished your work. This Fixer stares at himself in the mirror and slaps his face to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believing,” because that’s the only way he can wake up in the morning. Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, however, found a very modern way to give himself a little more oomph before heading into this Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots: By changing his Twitter avatar to an excerpt from Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy’s column about how the Texans are destined to be blown out. If Houston manages to complete the upset, Shaughnessy will be widely lambasted for his reverse jinx. Still, it’s going to take more than getting dissed by a man in Massachusetts for Houston to mind the gap. They’ve already been blown out by the Patriots once this season, and New England wasn’t playing especially above its ability. Sometimes that’s how it goes when one side has Tom Brady and the other has a guy with an unpronounceable last name. (Joking! I’ve figured it out, I think–it’s pronounced “Sheeb.”) – JG

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